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$160 shipped?? Good price, but you are in DE so that might help. I got free shipping with the 2 bags of sands to their Cali warehouse. Funny they wouldnt send it to the dallas location. :-/

Yea, im going to be like a kid in a candy store when it shows up. Still though it might take some learnin to implement it into my regular casting work. Im curious to see how it handles the lost pla casting. There is mention of casting SLA parts with it, so it might work out ok..... But I would bet on a learning curve.....

The eps beads came from foamerica.com
The were only 20.00 for 3cf. But the shipping was 47.00
pretty crazy huh?? Hasmat charges maybe??

Thanks for the link, not sure if im looking in the right place though as i can only see the eps bean bag fillers. These are already fully expanded i think so not what im looking for. The unexpanded beads look like sugar or coarse sand before they are activated with steam. As for the shipping, bloody hell!!! i guess its done on volume rather than weight.

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Originally Posted by DavidF

I watched the decoy video..... very painful. Lol

Yep, thats what i thought when i watched it. But i havent found much else out there in youtube land thats any use to the home gamer. If anyone knows of any others can you let us know.

The beads have a limited shelf life if I remember correctly, there was a thread running on the old forum about using them. I'll be very interested to see how you get on with them.

Ive heard about the short shelf life too, maybe thats why im struggling to find any without commiting to a container full.

I'll be honest, i have had marginal success with expanded beanbag filler but i really had to pack them into the moulds and leave them in the pressure cooker for a while. The model did hold together but was too fragile for what i needed, so im still looking out for the unexpanded beads. Good luck with the project David and keep us informed.

If you want a large styrofoam casting then here is some of what I made in a high school foundry in my off time in the 80's. I taught physics and had unlimited use of the school's two foundries. The patterns were made out 2" 4x8 foot EPS panels made for foundry work, which I machined, carved, sawed, sanded and glued into the patterns for the casting shown in the attached photo.

The patterns were then embedded in AFS 105 sand mixed with Ashland ADCOSIL N sodium silicate and then hardened. The Waterbed Tender frame is ~ 5 feet long and required that both of the furnaces be going each with a #60 crucible full of A319 Aluminum. It took four guys to make the pour, and I got carried away and made five of these beds!

There is a yard stick on top of the bed. The wheel are in iron, and the flasks were carried over to an iron foundry for pouring, everything else was poured at the school.

Today, such a project would be impossible; all shops are gone, and the words "College Prep" have been added to the schools name, and I have been retired for many years!

Nice Ronald. You were reusing the pattern? What some of us are currently working with is lost foam casting where the pattern is lost in the process along the same lines as lost wax. Maybe one day, I will construct a furnace capable of melting 120 lbs aluminum, but its pointless until I can create a pattern/mold that would require it. Going ceramic shell and lost foam would greatly simplify the molding and pattern work

If you were in high school in the 80s and have been retired for years, Congrats and good for you! ....and whoa, those are some large lost foam castings.

Though I believe the discovery of Polystyrene considerably predated the turn of the 20th century, I don't believe expanded polystyrene wasn't around until the 1940s. Anyone know what the earliest example of lost foam casting may be, commercial or otherwise?

Best,
Kelly

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Originally Posted by DavidF

Going ceramic shell and lost foam would greatly simplify the molding and pattern work